# Constance Marten and Mark Gordon each get 14 years for newborn daughter's death
*Event date: 2025-09-15*
Constance Marten and Mark Gordon have each been sentenced to 14 years in prison for the death of their newborn daughter, Victoria, after a trial that exposed a long and chaotic effort to avoid authorities while living off grid in freezing conditions. Judge Mark Lucraft delivered the sentence at London’s Old Bailey, saying the pair had shown no genuine remorse and had treated their baby with neglect of the gravest and most serious type.
The case drew national attention because of the circumstances surrounding the child’s death and the months-long manhunt that followed. Marten and Gordon went on the run after police found a placenta in their burnt-out car near a motorway outside Manchester in northwest England. They were later arrested after a seven-week search in January and February 2023, during which they lived in a tent. Days after their arrest, police found Victoria’s body in a shopping bag on a vegetable patch.
CBS News reported that the couple had denied the charges, but a jury found them guilty of manslaughter in July after an earlier jury had been unable to reach a verdict on that count. In sentencing, Lucraft told them that they had given little thought to their baby’s care or welfare. According to the report, he also reprimanded them for gesturing and passing notes to each other in court, calling it a complete lack of respect for the proceedings.
The case also revealed the extent to which the couple had cut themselves off from authorities and, at times, from ordinary life. Marten and Gordon were trying to retain custody of their daughter after authorities had already taken their four other children into care, saying the couple’s lifestyle posed a significant risk to them. Marten told the court that Victoria died when she fell asleep on her in the tent, while the judge said he believed the child died from hypothermia.
Marten’s background became part of the public fascination around the case. Born into an aristocratic family, she had grown up in a large Dorset estate and had family ties to the royal household. But according to the account in CBS News, she had also distanced herself from that privilege, lived at times without paying rent and scavenged from bins while on the run. In court, she said some members of her biological family saw her as an embarrassment and had acted against her, though she did not fully explain the claim.
Gordon’s history was markedly different and more violent. Prosecutors told the London court that as a teenager he had committed a serious assault in Florida and later served a lengthy prison sentence before being released. The report also noted a 2017 conviction for assaulting two female police officers at a maternity unit in Wales, where Marten had given birth to one of their children under a false identity.
At sentencing, the judge’s remarks made clear that the court viewed the case not as an isolated tragedy but as the result of sustained neglect and refusal to engage with the systems meant to protect the child. The 14-year terms reflect the gravity of a case that combined flight from police, repeated deception, and the death of a baby who had no way to protect herself.
The sentence closes one chapter in a case that has already prompted intense public scrutiny of parental responsibility, child protection, and the role of the courts when parents deliberately place a child in danger. For Victoria, the evidence presented to the court pointed to a death that was preventable and prolonged by the adults charged with her care.
